What to Do Before Painting Drywall

Drywall and Interior Painting Preperation Tips

Never oversand

When it comes to drywall and interior painting, you need to make sure your walls are completely smooth, however, there is a fine line when it comes to sanding, so make sure you do not oversand. Oversanding joints will damage the paper face on your drywall panels and leave marks or tears. Always begin with some light sanding and your sandpaper needs to be not too coarse. Should you oversand, you will have to fill the scratches with some joint compound.

Sanding drywall will create a great deal of dust. So before you start sanding, you need to prepare your room and make sure that you are protected also against dust inhalation. Even though you will want to seal the room off to protect the rest of your house from the dust buildup, you must properly ventilate the room too. Open your windows and put a fan in the window to blow the air out, or if you have one use an air cleaner. As you prepare to sand you must bear in mind the advice listed below:

1. Put plastic over the doorway to seal off the room so the dust does not escape into the rest of the house.

2. Make sure you properly ventilate your room, however, do not open every window, as this will just circulate the dust.

3. Place a drop cloth on the floor to catch any falling dust.

4. Cover any furniture still in the room.

5. Make sure you wear goggles and a dust mask to protect against dust inhalation. You should also consider wearing a hat to keep dust off your hair.

Start sanding

After you have done all the above, take the first pass on your walls with a pole sander using 120-grit sandpaper. Make sure you place even pressure when doing this. Glide the pole sander across every taped seam, this will blend the joints into your drywall surface. Some find it hard to smooth the corners and smaller areas with this machine, so you will need to do this manually.